Jane's Addiction - December 11, 1990 - Chiles Center, University of Portland, Portland, OR

Date: December 11, 1990
Location: Chiles Center, University of Portland, Portland, OR
Recorded: Audio
Status: Confirmed
Type: Concert
Lineup: Perry Farrell
Dave Navarro
Stephen Perkins
Eric Avery
Artwork:
 

Setlist:

Up The Beach
Whores
Standing In The Shower... Thinking
No One's Leaving
Ain't No Right
Then She Did...
Pigs In Zen
Been Caught Stealing
Three Days
Mountain Song
Stop!
Summertime Rolls
Ocean Size

Show Information:

Pixies & Primus opened.

Thanks go out to 'kc' for the multi-date ad.

Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
December 7, 1990
RITUAL ROCK
Author: MARTY HUGHLEY - of the Oregonian Staff

Billowing dry-ice smoke is one of the silliest cliches of rock concert staging, usually adding as much sense of drama as 3-D effects in a horror movie. But when the Los Angeles band Jane's Addiction stepped out into the artificial haze in its first Portland appearance two years ago, the stage took on a strangely mythic aura, both powerful and alluring.

The band launched salvos of high-sheen metallic noise as singer Perry Farrell -- skinny body writhing and hopping -- tossed his snaky braids and wailed in a voice that was equal parts innocence and scorn. The fans returned the band's energy, whipping their necks to the rhythm, dancing madly and beaming kilowatt smiles.

ising above its own hackneyed ploys and bringing even unbelievers along towhat seemed like another world.

That capacity to enthrall is one reason Portland rock fans have been eagerly awaiting the return of Jane's Addiction in a Tuesday concert at the University of Portland's Chiles Center. Both opening acts -- the Pixies and Primus -- are college radio stars in their own rights, making this one of the biggest alternative rock billings of the year.

"Ritual de lo Habitual," the second major label release from Jane's Addiction, shot into the mid-20s of the Billboard pop albums chart, selling more than half a million copies within a few weeks of its release in late summer. The song "Been Caught Stealing" is dominating college radio play lists. Faith No More is the only band to score bigger success out of the alternative ranks this year.

a controversy over "Nothing's Shocking," the band's first major label album released in 1988. Eight major retailers refused to carry the album because of its cover art: a sculpture of nude Siamese twins (modeled after Farrell's girlfriend) sitting in a rocking chair with their heads on fire. Though the response may have proved Farrell's title wrong, all but two of the chains later relented.

The "Ritual" cover also caused a flap with a record company. The concern was over Farrell's papier-mache sculpture of himself, his girlfriend and another woman, lying nearly nude on a box spring surrounded by fetishes borrowed from the Caribbean religion Santeria. As a compromise, an alternate cover, with the First Amendment printed on a white background, also was released.

The visual hooks may have attracted the curious, but it's the strong music and headstrong attitudes that have won the devotion of the band's cult following.

"Nothing's Shocking" (which followed an independent release in 1987) reveals one of the most eccentric hard rock approaches in years. Incorporating both punk-bred speediness and neo-psychedelic filigree, the band's sound is an arty reinvention of Led Zeppelin's grandiosity; except that where Zeppelin aped and embellished blues forms, Jane's fractures them or ignores them in favor of unhinged melodies. Moments of druggy languor punctuate the general headlong rush of the songs, adding to the hazy, out-of-focus feeling.

A strong Jane's Addiction influence already is evident in other bands, such as Seattle's Mother Love Bone (whose singer Andy Wood died just before their terrific debut LP "Apple" was released) and Portland's recently signed Love On Ice.

Perhaps as notable is Farrell's lyric persona. The Patron Saint of Defiant Hedonists, he rants against authority ("Idiots Rule"), conventional morality ("Ain't No Right") and drug testing (unprintable asides), or wanders through trippy dreamscapes that glorify personal freedom and the holy trinity of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Yet for all his spotty logic and snotty sensualism, he delivers both sharp observations and seductive allusions.

The world of Jane's Addiction may not be the best place to live, but it's a great place to visit. Don't mind the smoke.

PREVIEW Jane's Addiction Where: Chiles Center, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd. When: 8 p.m. Tuesday Tickets: $17.50 advance, general admission

Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
December 13, 1990
ROCK'S ALTERNATIVE BANDS MOVING TO MAINSTREAM
Author: MARTY HUGHLEY - of the Oregonian Staff

In 1977, when punk rock erupted, the term had a clear definition. Now, more than a decade later, the blending and expanding of styles has left us with the amorphous term "alternative" to describe music that presumably carries on the anti-establishment ethos.

But when a concert in Portland can draw 4,000 fans, as a triple-bill led by Jane's Addiction did Tuesday night at the University of Portland's Chiles Center, it's worth wondering if such music can be considered part of the cultural underground. What the popularity of such acts indicates, in part, is that rock's left wing has moved from rebellion to status as the industry's opposition party; sort of like Labor is to the Tories in Britain.

The evening's second act, the Pixies, actually have a subtly subversive approach to pop. After an opening set of well-played but haphazardly structured white funk by Primus, the Boston-based Pixies took the stage to mesmerize and unsettle. The quartet's sound has the economy and underlying buoyance of pop, yet is dominated by bawling vocals and grating guitar dissonance derived from East Coast art-punk experimenters. Singer-writer Black Francis came across like a man who cultivated his psychosis in childhood, listening to Monkees records while slicing the speaker cones on his big sister's stereo.

Jane's Addiction, from Los Angeles, was somewhat closer to the mainstream. For all its frenetic energy and neo-psychedelic sprawl, the band's sound is much akin to pop-metal, though it does manage the odd balancing act of carrying both punk credibility and rock-star glamour.

But lead singer Perry Farrell demonstrated one of the alternative scene's calling cards, with stage banter that derided Nazi skinheads and fur-coat wearers. And though he also tossed in a couple offhand references to sex and parties, the crowd responded with much more fervor to the socio-political comments.Whichever genre you lump it in, though, the band made a glorious racket. Drummer Stephen Perkins' heavily syncopated bashing provided both platform and propulsion for both Dave Navarro's skyrocketing, anti-blues guitar squealing and Eric Avery's alternately dreamy and driving bass work. Meanwhile Farrell sang in his whiny wail, dancing electro-shock jigs like a spindly marionette in a black leather body suit.

* Though the show didn't have the misty, mythic power of the band's previous show here, it confirmed that the big time can't be too far away. Suffice it to say the opposition party has some winning candidates.